Editing Construction grammar (section)

==Concepts==

One of the most distinctive features of CxG is its use of multi-word expressions and phrasal patterns as the building blocks of syntactic analysis.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/pdf/BoasSag-intro.pdf|title=Introducing Sign Based Construction Grammar|last=Boas, Hans|first=Ivan Sag and Paul Kay|date=2012|page=19|access-date=2019-09-14}}</ref> One example is the Correlative Conditional construction, found in the proverbial expression ''The bigger they come, the harder they fall''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sag|first=Ivan|date=2010|title=English Filler-Gap Constructions|journal=Language|volume=86|issue=3|pages=486–545|doi=10.1353/lan.2010.0002|citeseerx=10.1.1.138.2274|s2cid=14934876 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fillmore|first=Charles|date=1986|title=Varieties of Conditional Sentences|journal=Eastern States Conference on Linguistics|volume=3|pages=163–182}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Michaelis|first=Laura A.|date=1994-01-01|title=A Case of Constructional Polysemy in Latin|journal=Studies in Language|language=en|volume=18|issue=1|pages=45–70|doi=10.1075/sl.18.1.04mic|issn=0378-4177|citeseerx=10.1.1.353.1125}}</ref> Construction grammarians point out that this is not merely a fixed phrase; the Correlative Conditional is a general pattern (''The Xer, the Yer'') with "slots" that can be filled by almost any comparative phrase (e.g. ''The more you think about it, the less you understand''). Advocates of CxG argue these kinds of idiosyncratic patterns are more common than is often recognized, and that they are best understood as multi-word, partially filled constructions.<ref name=goldberg2006/>

Construction grammar rejects the idea that there is a sharp dichotomy between [[lexical item]]s, which are arbitrary and specific, and grammatical rules, which are completely general. Instead, CxG posits that there are linguistic patterns at every level of generality and specificity: from individual words, to partially filled constructions (e.g. ''drive X crazy''), to fully abstract rules (e.g. [[subject–auxiliary inversion]]). All of these patterns are recognized as constructions.<ref>Kay, Paul and Michaelis, Laura A. (2012). Constructional Meaning and Compositionality. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger and P. Portner (eds.), ''Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning''. Vol. 3. Berlin: de Gruyter. 2271-2296</ref>

In contrast to theories that posit an innate [[universal grammar]] for all languages, construction grammar holds that speakers learn constructions [[Inductive reasoning|inductively]] as they are exposed to them, using general cognitive processes. It is argued that children pay close attention to each utterance they hear, and gradually make generalizations based on the utterances they have heard. Because constructions are learned, they are expected to vary considerably across different languages.<ref name="goldberg2003">{{cite journal |last=Goldberg |first=Adele E. |title=Constructions: a new theoretical approach to language |journal=Trends in Cognitive Sciences |volume=7 |issue=5 |year=2003 |pages=219–224 |doi=10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00080-9 |pmid=12757824 |s2cid=12393863 |url=https://cs.indiana.edu/~port/teach/sem05/Goldberg.constrctns.TrCgSci.03.pdf }}</ref>

=== Grammatical construction ===
In construction grammar, as in general [[semiotics]], the [[grammatical construction]] is a pairing of form and content. The formal aspect of a construction is typically described as a [[syntax|syntactic]] template, but the form covers more than just syntax, as it also involves [[phonology|phonological]] aspects, such as [[Prosody (linguistics)|prosody]] and [[Intonation (linguistics)|intonation]], sometimes in the form of [[Prosodic Construction|prosodic constructions]]. The content covers [[semantics|semantic]] as well as [[pragmatics|pragmatic]] meaning.

The semantic meaning of a grammatical construction is made up of conceptual structures postulated in [[cognitive semantics]]: [[Image schema|image-schema]]s, frames, conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, prototypes of various kinds, mental spaces, and bindings across these (called "blends"). Pragmatics just becomes the cognitive semantics of communication—the modern version of the old [[John R. Ross|Ross]]-Lakoff performative hypothesis from the 1960s.

The form and content are symbolically linked in the sense advocated by [[Ronald Langacker|Langacker]].

Thus a construction is treated like a [[Sign (semiotics)|sign]] in which all structural aspects are integrated parts and not distributed over different modules as they are in the componential model. Consequentially, not only constructions that are lexically fixed, like many idioms, but also more abstract ones like [[argument structure]] schemata, are pairings of form and conventionalized meaning. For instance, the [[ditransitive]] schema [S V IO DO] is said to express semantic content X CAUSES Y TO RECEIVE Z, just like ''kill'' means X CAUSES Y TO DIE.

In construction grammar, a grammatical construction, regardless of its formal or semantic complexity and make up, is a pairing of form and meaning. Thus words and word classes may be regarded as instances of constructions. Indeed, construction grammarians argue that all pairings of form and meaning are constructions, including phrase structures, [[idiom]]s, [[word]]s and even [[morpheme]]s.

=== Syntax–lexicon continuum ===
Unlike the componential model, construction grammar denies any strict distinction between the two and proposes a ''syntax–lexicon continuum''.<ref name="Dufter2017">Dufter, Andreas, and Stark, Elisabeth (eds., 2017) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=_VBKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT29 Manual of Romance Morphosyntax and Syntax]'', Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG</ref> The argument goes that words and complex constructions are both pairs of form and meaning and differ only in internal symbolic complexity. Instead of being discrete modules and thus subject to very different processes they form the extremes of a continuum (from regular to idiosyncratic): syntax > [[Subcategorization|subcategorization frame]] > idiom > [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] >  [[syntactic category]] > word/[[lexicon]] (these are the traditional terms; construction grammars use a different terminology).

=== Grammar as an inventory of constructions ===
In construction grammar, the grammar of a language is made up of [[Taxonomy (general)|taxonomic]] networks of families of constructions, which are based on the same principles as those of the conceptual categories known from [[cognitive linguistics]], such as inheritance, prototypicality, extensions, and multiple parenting.

Four different models are proposed in relation to how information is stored in the taxonomies:

#'''Full-entry model'''
#:In the full-entry model information is stored redundantly at all relevant levels in the taxonomy, which means that it operates, if at all, with minimal generalization.{{example needed|date=December 2018}}
#:
#'''Usage-based model'''
#:The usage-based model is based on [[Inductive reasoning|inductive learning]], meaning that linguistic knowledge is acquired in a bottom-up manner through use. It allows for redundancy and generalizations, because the language user generalizes over recurring experiences of use.{{example needed|date=December 2018}}
#:
#'''Default inheritance model'''
#:According to the default inheritance model, each network has a default central form-meaning pairing from which all instances inherit their features. It thus operates with a fairly high level of generalization, but does also allow for some redundancy in that it recognizes extensions of different types.{{example needed|date=December 2018}}
#:
#'''Complete inheritance model'''
#:In the complete inheritance model, information is stored only once at the most superordinate level of the network. Instances at all other levels inherit features from the superordinate item. The complete inheritance does not allow for redundancy in the networks.{{example needed|date=December 2018}}

=== Principle of no synonymy ===
Because construction grammar does not operate with surface derivations from underlying structures, it adheres to functionalist linguist [[Dwight Bolinger]]'s ''principle of no synonymy'', on which [[Adele Goldberg (linguist)|Adele Goldberg]] elaborates in her book.<ref name="goldberg1995">{{cite book | author=Goldberg, Adele| title=Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure| location=Chicago/London | publisher=University of Chicago Press| year=1995}}</ref>

This means that construction grammarians argue, for instance, that active and passive versions of the same proposition are not derived from an underlying structure, but are instances of two different constructions. As constructions are pairings of form and meaning,<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396683.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195396683-e-1|title=Construction Grammar|volume=1|last1=Hoffmann|first1=Thomas|last2=Trousdale|first2=Graeme|editor-first1=Thomas |editor-first2=Graeme |editor-last1=Hoffmann |editor-last2=Trousdale |date=2013-04-18|language=en|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396683.013.0001}}</ref> active and passive versions of the same proposition are not synonymous, but display differences in content: in this case the pragmatic content.